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Topic: Stuff Smith solo on soft winds |
Andy Volk
From:
Boston, MA
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HowardR
From:
N.Y.C.-Fire Island-Asheville
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Posted 23 May 2005 7:01 am |
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I's a muggin' fool (la di ah da).....  |
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Bill Hatcher
From:
Atlanta Ga. USA
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Posted 23 May 2005 7:21 am
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Bad cat!
Anytime you incorporate great playing like this played on ANY instrument, you improve your lap style. |
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Gene Jones
From:
Oklahoma City, OK USA, (deceased)
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Posted 23 May 2005 9:21 am
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I have Stuff's "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof" and it's great stuff (pun intended). In another life time I worked with a western-swing fiddle player who could play Stuff's material flawlessly....Famous Amos Hedrick, formerly with Hank Thompson.
www.genejones.com |
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Stephan Miller
From:
Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
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Posted 23 May 2005 3:20 pm
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| Stuff's tough. |
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Andy Greatrix
From:
Edmonton Alberta
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Posted 23 May 2005 5:18 pm
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| Wow! That solo is inspiring and discouraging all at the same time. |
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David L. Donald
From:
Koh Samui Island, Thailand
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Posted 23 May 2005 10:34 pm
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More Miles and Dizzy the Stepahne! Cool!
What album's this offa?[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 23 May 2005 at 11:35 PM.] |
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Terje Larson
From:
Rinkeby, Spånga, Sweden
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Posted 23 May 2005 11:07 pm
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I haven't really listened to Stuff Smith before. I think I need to change that. No, let me rephrase that... I'm a a blind moron who has lived in a cave all my life but now I have been shown the light!
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If you can't hear the others you're too loud, if you can't hear yourself you've gone deaf |
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Andy Volk
From:
Boston, MA
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Posted 24 May 2005 2:22 am
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| It's from a Verve/Polygram 2 CD set called "Stuff Smith Dizzy Gillespie & Oscar Peterson" that includes 3 complete LPs all recorded in 1957: "Stuff Smith;" "Have Violin Will Swing" and "Dizzy Gillespie-Stuff Smith." There's a 4-CD set on Mosaic that's out of print and goes for big bucks. There's one on eBay now that's up to $147. The Verve set is the one to get. Amazon has sound clips. |
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David L. Donald
From:
Koh Samui Island, Thailand
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Posted 24 May 2005 4:06 am
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I LOVE it I could REALLY hear him copping Dizzy too! .
Thanks Andy. |
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James Quackenbush
From:
Pomona, New York, USA
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Posted 24 May 2005 9:14 am
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| He sounds a lot like Papa John Creach to my ears .......Jim |
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David L. Donald
From:
Koh Samui Island, Thailand
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Posted 24 May 2005 11:14 pm
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| James, more likely the other way round |
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Bob Stone
From:
Gainesville, FL, USA
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Posted 25 May 2005 6:03 am
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Right on, Andy.
As a player of both violin (past tense) and steel, I think the instruments have a lot in common. They both can "sing," nuances of pitch and vibrato are unrestricted by frets, and often one plays single notes or harmonized double-stops. Of course, a steel is capable of full chords, but I find it can be liberating to approach the instrument more in terms of lead lines, sometimes played in double stops. On the other hand, there is nothing quite like the dynamic expression and rhythms a good violinist (aka fiddler) can create with the bow.
Anyhow, I see violinists/fiddlers as a good source of inspiration for steel guitarists.
I also know fiddlers who think in terms of a steel guitar sound when playing amplified.
For further inspiration, here's a wonderful jazz violin album by Johnny Frigo and the Pizzarellis, et al.: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000003GEQ/qid=1117030090/s r=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/103-8227372-4316630
And it was recorded with just one microphone! To me, Frigo's delivery of his own composition "Detour Ahead" is worth the price of the whole album. It's a tune I intend to work out on the steel too...[This message was edited by Bob Stone on 25 May 2005 at 07:11 AM.] [This message was edited by Bob Stone on 25 May 2005 at 07:13 AM.] |
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Gerald Ross
From:
Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
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Andy Volk
From:
Boston, MA
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Posted 25 May 2005 6:31 am
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| Yeah! Frigo's a good player - he's done a few nice records with Herb Ellis. There'a certain cloying sweetness in his playing a la Grappelli that Stuff leavescompletely behind. I've been trying to figure out how to get Stuff's mind-bending chromatic, Dizzy-inspired cascading slurs on my Stringmaster. I'm not even in the ballpark! I suspect that something like Bob Brozman's eliptical technique coupled with Sol Hoopii's chromatic lick could work ... kinda like drawing a series of super quick circles down the strings. Anybody have any thoughs on this one? |
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Bob Stone
From:
Gainesville, FL, USA
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Posted 25 May 2005 7:53 am
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Andy,
I'm almost postive that Smith is executing the cascading chromatic stuff by simply holding a double stop with two fingers of his left hand and sliding down to lower pitches as he bows. Of course, he must adjust the spread of his fingers to maintain the interval as he descends (just as we adjust the slant of a bar. Have you tried holding a slanted bar and descending as you pick? What Smith is doing reminds me of the the reverse-slant-bar-tip-lots of vibrato- smear-fudge that Dobro pickers do on Uncle Josh's "Flatt Lonesome." I think that's tabbed in the "Great Dobro Sessions" book, and can be heard on the record of the same name.
I don't have time to try Stuff's stuff on my steel right now, but I thought I'd throw these ideas your way.
On both the steel and the violin, the challenge is to execute this sort of thing without pitches sounding too greasy. Greasy, but not too greasy. And that's pretty subjective. |
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David L. Donald
From:
Koh Samui Island, Thailand
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Posted 25 May 2005 9:07 am
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Dicky Overby was doing masterful versions of that technique with Jake Hooker at ISGC.
It was on the old PP, but serious multi slants going down the neck while picking.
Not quite as jazz as the discusion above, but it immediatly came to mind. |
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Andy Volk
From:
Boston, MA
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Posted 25 May 2005 9:36 am
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| Yes, you're right Bob, now that I re-listen ... just a double stop smeared up or down the fingerboard with vibrato and a very rhythmic bow attack. Not that far from the crying dobro sounds of yesteryear BUT perfectly nailed in a harmonically challenging framework. Sol Hoopii's accending chromatic lick was done as a backward roll. Getting Stuff's lick on a lap steel requires some real finese. The actual interval sounds like a 5th to my tin ear. Hope we're not beating a dead horse here. [This message was edited by Andy Volk on 25 May 2005 at 10:37 AM.] |
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Bob Stone
From:
Gainesville, FL, USA
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Posted 25 May 2005 1:37 pm
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| A fifth interval certainly makes sense on a fiddle. Just stop two adjacent strings with your index finger and slide away... |
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Dan Tyack
From:
Olympia, WA USA
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Posted 27 May 2005 12:40 pm
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Andy, Stuff is one of my big idols in terms of jazz playing. If you can't wow them with gnat notes, then hit em' over the head with a big fat tone and blusey, low down phrasing.
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www.tyack.com
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, the guy was a monster!).
